Knitting Progress - The Good and the Bad

Mom LOVES her pink bedsocks! I sent them to her for her birthday as I actually DID get them done in a timely manner. They may be a bit long though - her feet are longer than mine, but I can't remember by how much, so I just had to wing it. (Last year, I had measured her feet against mine and had noted the difference in length....but I can't seem to find where I'd recorded that information - DUH!!!!) She claims it won't matter if they're too long, but I'm not so sure.

The funniest part about me making her another pair of bedsocks was that she had thought about asking me to make her a pair, but every time we chatted on the phone, she forgot to mention it. She'd basically "worn out" the ones I made her last year. She wore them to bed every night as she loved the thick, loose knit - they were comfortable and kept her feet very warm. She said she's worn a hole in them....and was definitely needing a new pair, but just never got around to asking.

I've almost finished the fingerless gloves I'm making from my friend Jayme's pattern. I've found that I'm really bad at the thumb increases...and the second one isn't turning out nearly as well as the first one. In addition to my inferior increases, and I have a couple of blatant stitch errors that I need to go back and fix before I do the final bind off on the second glove. I guess I had beginner's luck with the first one!

The fingerless gloves are the first cable project I've ever attempted, and I'm thrilled with how the cabling turned out. I'll just have to work on the thumb increases by doing another pair - perhaps then I'll master it!

With another recently "finished" project, I've learned a valuable lesson. Remember the "Half Cable" bedsocks I was making for my daughter? Well, I'm going to rip them out. First off, I don't like the toe finish at all - the rather "spiral" looking twist just isn't pleasing to the eye or to the foot. But that's not the "cause" of my desire to rip them out - after all, I could just rip back the toe finish and re-do that part. No, it's worse than just the toe finish....

I had finished the first sock way back in February or March. When I finished the second sock (last week), the diameter of the foot was about 3/4 to 1 inch SMALLER in circumference than the first sock and the length was about 1/2 inch shorter....for the SAME number of rows! ARGH!!!! Lesson learned - finish BOTH socks within a short time time of each other - otherwise, you risk having vastly different tensions resulting in very different socks!